3 surprising ways I made my Erasmus more organized and fun

On this day 5 months ago, I began my Erasmus mobility exchange. I became part of a community of four million open-minded and ambitious people, who like to explore. I swam in the ocean for the first time, I went boulder climbing with professionals, I had a kayaking competition in the middle of November in the rain, ate the most delicious ice-cream, enjoyed a day in the hot-springs in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, had dinner in an illegal Chinese restaurant, ran up an escalator for 40 minutes straight for my marketing project. I did all that and a lot more for less than 180 days. Sounds amazing, right?

Preparing for my stay abroad, however, wasn’t all that fun. The imense amount of documents, accommodation hunting and local peculiarities were the real challenge of my Eramsus. Fortunatelly, I had some great tools around that made my student’s exchange an amazing experience.

In the following paragraphs I give you 3 tips on how to organize your Erasmus stay with minimal effort and create great memories along the way.

Five months ago, I arrived in sunny Portugal to become one of the four million Erasmus students in the history of the European exchange program. My last year of Bachelor studies was approaching so I decided to make the most of my sweet student life and travel abroad for a semester. The decision then became one of my fondest memories today. I created my own adventure, one that allowed me to learn more than I did the previous three years. Despite that, Erasmus is not all roses.

While those of you, who are about to depart for their own adventure share my enthusiasm, post-Erasmus students know how much of a challenge organizing your Erasmus can be. Preparing for the big day can turn into a season of “Survivor”. At the beginning I saw myself running all around the university, trying to get all of my documents signed, searching for accomodation like my life depended on it and more.

Fortunatelly, in the course of my mobility I found that keeping the following items can save you tons of nerves and make your Erasmus all the better:

1. Install a huge deal of apps

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Erasmus means a new country, and a new country means new local apps. During my stay in Lisbon, I remember installing more than 10 different apps that would help get by daily activities like

public transport

taxis that won’t cheat on the bill

cool places to eat out with friends

keeping my financial spending

new events and parties

local language and more

Do some research in advance, ask your buddy what apps the locals use the most and download them. You will see afterwards, it will pay off.

2. Invest in some cloud storage on the side. Your Erasmus is going to be well beyond 20 GB.

Litterally, my whole Erasmus was stored in my cloud storage account.

Paperwork: Learning Agreements, Certificate of Attendence, Transcript of Records, Financial Contracts and much more — Erasmus is an administrative horror. Now imagine making changes to every document you make multiple times. It becomes a mess unless you store everything in one place.

Travels: Leaving administration aside, Erasmus is the perfect excuse to get into travel mode and explore as much as you can. I had a bucket list of the places I wanted to visit in Portugal in advance so the moment I had free time, I was somewhere new. Once you start your Erasmus, you will become a photo junkie whether you like it or not. Every time I got off the bus, I magically had more than 10 GB worth of photos and videos per trip on my phone.

Entertainment: Keep in mind that at the beginning of your stay in a foreign country, your access to mobile data will be limitted. That is why, if you still want to enjoy your favorite music while exploring the new sights, it’s better to move them in a cloud storage account and allow offline access.

What’s more, I mentioned how I travelled during my free time, right? Some rides would last up to 8 hours and in order to keep myself entertained, I had some movies and books on the side in my pCloud account as well.

Sending photos: Most of the time, I wasn’t travelling alone and I wanted to have as much visual material as possible so sharing all the photos I had taken only natural. The process was so much easier when the only thing I had to do is generate a link and paste it in the group chats.

Sharing learning material: Sharing is caring, especially when you are sharing learning materials just before the exam session. Adding helpful lectures or notes in a common folder helped everyone pass with good final marks.

Subscribing for a cloud storage service was one of the best organizational decisions I made. In my case, pCloud had more than enough features to keep up with my adventures.

3. Keep a charged powerbank in your pocket.

You may want to use Google Maps because you’re lost, order a taxi as the subway closed a while ago, take a photo of the most amazing sunset ever. With all of the digital activity going on, unless you own a +4000 mAh powerbank, your phone is going to be dead when you need it the most. It’s called Murphy’s law and it sucks. That’s why it’s always better to be safe and get some additional juice for your smartphone.

Erasmus is a great opportunity. You get a nice combination of travel choices, chances to meet amazing people, who share your passions and more. Portugal was my country of choice.

Praia dos Três Castelos, Algarve

And I believe it couldn’t have been better. The mixture of good weather, welcoming culture and open academic environment helped me develop as a person bring great memories with me back home.

If you are still wondering whether to sumbit your Erasmus application, I would advise you to do it. It’s a perfect way to challenge yourself in different areas, whether it’s about living alone for the first time, learning in a foreign language or getting away for your normal routine. In the meantime, you can be sure that these 3 tips will help you with the not-so-amazing part of the program and guarantee for a great experience nonetheless.